Various mechanisms exist for tracking a broad market using a subset of the available financial instruments. Such mechanisms include “indexes” (i.e., dynamic subsets) of the financial instruments and “baskets” (i.e., static subsets) of the financial instruments. The markets may typically include capital markets (wherein the market is tracked using an index of stocks, for example) and credit markets (wherein the market is tracked using an index of bonds, for example). For the purposes of the present application, the term “credit” is intended to include, but not be limited to, a bond, a bank loan, and/or a credit derivative (e.g., a swap).
For example, a number of conventional stock indices exist (e.g., the S&P 500, the Russell 2000, and the Russell 1000) which include a subset of stocks chosen to track a relatively large universe of stocks (e.g., small cap stocks, mid cap stocks, or large cap stocks). These conventional stock indices are typically priced on a continuous basis. More particularly, such conventional stock indices are typically priced on a real time or quasi-real time basis.
Further, there exist conventional credit indices that include a subset of credits chosen to track a relatively large universe of credits. Such a relatively large universe of credits may comprise all investment grade credits in a given market or all high yield credits in a given market, for example. These conventional credit indices are typically priced either: 1) once per month; or 2) more frequently using “matrix pricing” (wherein the pricing is carried out using a derived pricing mechanism). While the timeliness of the pricing may be improved by including fewer credits in the index (thus enabling more frequent pricing using more up-to-date data), the accuracy of the tracking of the broad market by the conventional credit index has traditionally suffered (i.e., as fewer credits are included in the index the tracking error has traditionally increased). Further still, some these conventional credit indices are not typically readily tradable in a widespread (e.g., public) market, at least in part because the underlying credits are not typically “liquid”.
Among those benefits and improvements that have been disclosed, other objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying figures. The figures constitute a part of this specification and include illustrative embodiments of the present invention and illustrate various objects and features thereof.